Fernhill House installs three
pioneering technologies to help residents and families

Friday 17th March, 2017

A luxury
£8 million care home in Fernhill Heath near Worcester is installing three up-to-the-minute
technologies aimed at ensuring residents’ wellbeing, keeping families informed
and making the best use of staff time.

Fernhill
House, which is due to open in the spring, is to become one of the first in the
UK to use a specialised acoustic monitoring system aimed at ensuring residents
receive prompt overnight attention without compromising their privacy.

The
system, which has been used in the progressive Netherlands for the past 30
years, is available at only a handful of homes this side of the channel.
The
technology is designed to keep a virtual eye on residents while they are asleep
and alert staff to any unusual activity – such as falling out of bed or being
distressed.

This
means residents don’t need to be disturbed by staff checking in on them
unnecessarily, with an added benefit that time otherwise taken up doing this
can be directed where it is most needed.
The
£60,000 system, which will be installed in all 66 bedrooms, is activated when
noises reach a higher than expected level and triggers an alert to staff.

The
second technology is aimed at keeping families informed around the clock on the
day-to-day wellbeing of their relative.
A secure
portal, requiring password sign in, will detail activities, meals, medications
and state of mind.
Fernhill
House will be only the 270th home out of 22,000 in the UK to have
the Relatives Gateway smartphone tool.

It replaces old fashioned notes, which
are not only time consuming to complete but also can miss vital elements as
they can be completed several hours after the event. All information can be
shared to the central computer making it instantly available for all members of
the team.
A social network
element enables them to communicate with the staff and send and receive
pictures.

Fernhill House manager Peta
Mandleberg explained: “Its key benefits are that all activities are completely transparent, it cuts
down on paperwork, thus increasing face-to-face time between staff and residents,
and enables those with dementia to keep in even closer contact with their families.
Although
other electronic care planning systems have been around for a while, the Relatives
Gateway is very new technology.”

She
estimates this system alone will save an hour per day per team member – which
can then be used in increasing time spent with residents.
The
third technological advance is an e-medication admin record - Wellpad. All
pills and medicines are bar coded to ensure residents have precisely the right
dose at the right time and remove any margin of error.

While this is used in a
few hundred care homes up and down the country thousands do not have such a
system.
Fernhill
House, which aims to put the fun back into retirement living, opens in the
spring with 36 beds for those living with dementia and 30 for over 65s. In the
meantime, the marketing suite is open from 10am to 4pm daily by appointment.

Watch an
instructive video introducing the benefits of the acoustic monitoring system
here http://www.clb.nl/uk/home and find out more about the Relatives Gateway here: http://www.personcentredsoftware.com/products/relatives-gateway/

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Fernhill House installs three
pioneering technologies to help residents and families